Happy birthday to #mathematician & #polymath, Mary Fairfax Somerville (1780-1872). As a young widow she made a name for herself when she won a silver medal in 1811 from the Military College at Marlow math journal. Wallace suggested she read Laplace & finding she understood it as well as her tutor her confidence increased, & she expanded her studies to #astronomy, chemistry, #geography, microscopy, electricity & magnetism.

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#printmaking #womeninstemm #linocut #sciart

For #ArtAdventCalendar Day 3, a new scientist portrait: my #linocut of ancient Chinese Han Dynasty #polymath & statesman Zhang Heng (78-139) who invented a seismoscope (a simplified seismometer which doesn’t record earth motions) to detect distant earthquakes & indicate their direction, 2000 years ago! Here with a reconstruction of his seismoscope, schematic of how it might have worked & horizontal earthquake surface waves (Rayleigh waves in particular).

#histSci #printmaking #sciart 🧵1/n